I feel scared only when criticisms are objective: Surya Bahadur Thapa

After a protracted lull in the wake of the festival season which is taken very seriously in this Himalayan Kingdom - Nepalese politics shifted into top gear last month. In response to the growing chorus of criticism against the Government, Prime Minister Surya Bahadur Thapa lashed out at his critics in a hard hitting interview given to an Indian daily."I feel scared only when criticisms are objective. Why bother about criticisms not based on facts?" fumed the Nepalese prime minister. The Government also announced its plans to revitalise the anti-corruption bureau, promised to launch a minimum economic crash programme, and despatched inspection teams to ensure implementation of district and village level projects.Political observers in Kathmandu, however, point out that Thapa's belated response to his critics has been triggered by several recent developments. Considerable significance is attached to two separate meetings King Birendra is reported to have had last month with a group of opposition leaders and certain Cabinet ministers. When some opposition leaders - including among others former prime minister Tanka Prasad Acharya and former foreign minister and historian Dilli Raman Regmi - are reported to have asked for the removal of the incumbent prime minister. King Birendra is alleged to have replied that it wouldn't be in the interest of the country for him to use his authority to dismiss a duly elected prime minister. At a separate meeting at the royal retreat at Nagarjun several kilometres west of Kathmandu, the young monarch is alleged to have apprised the ministers of the public's disenchantment with their non-performance and given a six-month ultimatum to show results.High Expectations: In the wake of the tremendous unheavals preceding the referendum of May 1980 and the relative enthusiasm of the electorate in this year's general elections despite the opposition boycott, the Nepalese public had expected a lot from its government. "The Government has delivered neither economic prosperity nor political stability," says an astute observer of the political scene. "The Thapa Government has slid from one faux pas to another. Show me a single area where the Government's performance has been creditable," adds the editor of a Kathmandu daily.Koirala: Bowing outIn fact the most surprising aspect of the outcry against the present government is that 'prominent personalities from within the panchayat hierarchy like former prime ministers Tulsi Giri and K.N. Bista have joined in the anti-Thapa chorus. Says Bista: "It is the moral responsibility of a government to resign like I did when the Secretariat building caught fire, if it cannot deliver the goods."Like elsewhere in the subcontinent, corruption figures more prominently than any other issue in Nepalese politics. "The level of corruption in modern Nepal is simply unprecedented. It has been institutionalised," says Pasupati Rana, Thapa's foremost critic in the Rashtriya Panchayat, the national legislature. Kathmandu's walls were plastered with posters recently after the discovery that the Government had allowed the import of low-grade palm oil - reported to be hazardous to health - which was being sold mixed with locally consumed mustard oil. "The Government is not safeguarding the interest of the public," screamed the headlines in the local papers. The hue and cry has prompted the Government to dispatch a team abroad to test the purity of the oil in question.For the plethora of opposition groups who subscribe to the multi-party system of government, there was a mixed bag of fortunes last month. Barring a few campuses, there was a virtual sweep by the Maoist groups in the student elections. In simpler parlance this event signals a dangerous flashpoint for the Government. The Government would at any cost help prevent the type of upheavals that preceded the referendum of May 1980. The task of keeping the students in abeyance becomes all the more difficult for the Government with the red star having come out with flying colours at all the major campus elections.Sombre Development: But perhaps the most significant albeit sombre development last month for the moderate opposition groups in Nepal was the deteriorating health of Nepal's most renowned politician, the veteran leader of the banned Nepali Congress, B.P. Koirala who is suffering from lung cancer. "I will not discuss politics with you now, not until I know the proper diagnosis of my illness," Koirala told India Today while undergoing tests at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in Delhi. These words had special significance coming from a man who has literally lived with politics all his life and whose name has been synonymous with democratic change in Nepal's chequered political history. Koirala has been a champion of a partnership between monarchy and democratic forces in the political evolution of Nepal.There are justifiable fears among Kathmandu's political observers that should Koirala succumb to his illness, there is a danger of radicals coming to the forefront of opposition politics in Nepal. Both Ganesh Man Singh and Krishna Prasad Bhattarai, the senior most leaders of the party, are known to subscribe to more radical views on how the party should continue its struggle against the present system of government. G.P. Koirala, the younger brother of B.P. Koirala, known to be the organisation man of the party, also harbours similar views.The winter ahead promises to be a testing time for both the critics as well as the supporters of the present Government. Can the Government shore up its tarnished image? Can the corruption-as-a-way-of-life syndrome be stifled by the remedial measures the Government hopes to take? Or is the public's disenchantment with the Government beyond the point of repair? "Don't talk to anyone above the age of 39. They are a spent force," said Nirodh Raj, a young journalist reflecting the similar sentiments of the Indian public during the Janata regime. Apart from King Birendra, who turns 37 later this month, there are very few public figures in that age group who command much respect, at least for the present.Published By: AtMigration Published On: Oct 23, 2013 09:01 IST--- ENDS ---

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I feel scared only when criticisms are objective: Surya Bahadur Thapa

After a protracted lull in the wake of the festival season which is taken very seriously in this Himalayan Kingdom - Nepalese politics shifted into top gear last month.

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